


Coming Home

by darthneko



Series: What Matters Most [2]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Did I mention the headcanon?, Gen, Headcanon, Implied Mpreg, Mists of Pandaria, Pandaria is not for the weak of heart, So much headcanon, What happens in Pandaria stays in Pandaria, Wrynn men are terrible at talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 07:03:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5407454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthneko/pseuds/darthneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Home, Anduin thought, but he couldn't feel it, not in his breath or his bones, and he wondered if he ever would again.</i> -- A year ago Anduin Wrynn went up to the Kun-Lai summit to stop Garrosh Hellscream. He has been missing ever since and returning to Stormwind isn't as easy as it sounds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DragovianKnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragovianKnight/gifts).



> This will eventually be a series because did I mention how much headcanon there is? Because there's lots. LOTS. SO MUCH. So if you're confused right now, that's okay - more will be revealed later, I promise.

The familiar smells of the Stormwind docks reached him first, long before the ship came abreast of the heavy pier - salt soaked wood, raw fish, and the peculiar rot sea smell that permeated every beach on every coast, a combination of debris and seaweed washed up to decompose beneath the warm sun. On the deck of the merchant ship Anduin filled his lungs and wondered how he had thought it would ever change, or why this one port should smell any different than any other.  
  
It didn't, and he had been in and out of enough of them now to know it. But what the scent lacked the visuals provided, the pale stone of the great curving Stormwind dock walls rising high into the morning sun, imposing and majestic. _Home_ , Anduin thought, but he couldn't feel it, not in his breath or his bones, and he wondered if he ever would again.  
  
The ship was within reach of the dock now; Anduin stepped back and out of the way as the crew swarmed the side, heavy ropes flung across the narrow gap and secured. There was no fanfare, no honor guard; the pier itself was one of the worn utilitarian ones that housed nothing more important than merchants or fisherman trawlers. Anduin raked his hair out of his gaze as he watched them lower the gangplank; it was too long by half, curling past the nape of his neck and he had taken to tying a strip of cloth across his forehead in the vain hope of keeping it out of his eyes.  
  
There was, he knew, nothing to mark him apart from the traders and merchants that bustled around him on the deck except for the more exotic cut of his worn and dusty travel clothes that placed him, some of his fellow travelers had guessed, from southern Kalimdor, or maybe even Northrend. There wasn't a speck of Alliance blue or the golden Wrynn lion on him anywhere and the scrap of silvered mirror in his travel kit had told him, daily, that he no longer looked like the crown prince of anything, much less a city as grand as Stormwind - dusty, dirty, his exposed skin tanned like leather, hair bleached near white from the sun and salt. Thin; for all that he had lost muscle he had also lost the last of the adolescent softness to his features that had plagued him for years, his cheeks and nose standing sharper than he had ever seen them and entirely too much like a family resemblance for Anduin's peace of mind. It was, however, utterly unlike _him_ , and that had served him well enough while traveling.  
  
The gangplank was secured in place, the crew directing foot traffic down first while the more prosperous traders were still seeing their goods brought up from the hold. Anduin shouldered his pack and walked sure footed down the swaying plank, only to nearly fall as he stepped, for the first time in months, onto solid unmoving ground. One of the ship crew caught his arm, laughing; "Careful, that first step's always the hardest!"  
  
Anduin bit back the first word that came to mind, sealed hard and tight beneath the sudden rapid and fearful beat of his heart at the unexpected touch. It was harmless, helpful even, and he swallowed down the lump in his throat and made himself murmur a low thanks, letting his voice rasp, too aware of how the cultured shape of educated vowels in his words could mark him within a stone's throw of the noble neighborhoods, particularly here on the edge of Stormwind itself.  
  
His first steps were shaky and he had to steady himself against the sturdy breadth of a lamp post before he made it to the end of the pier. The solid planks under his boots seemed to pitch and heave in ways that hadn't bothered him on ship in months. Sea legs, they called it, and land legs, and he had sacrificed one for the other and now was back to being unsteady on his own feet once more. It had, he acknowledged with a sigh, been a very long trip - Winterveil had come and gone sometime between Theramore and Gadgetzan, and now, across the great sea, there was the tinge of spring threading into the morning air, the trees starting to sprout green once more.  
  
He had to step out of the way twice more, once, politely, for a merchant couple struggling to keep track of three small children and their goods besides, and the second for a small herd of goats and sheep shipped from Westfall that hadn't a care for what was in their way provided it got them off of the boat. The warm weight of the bundle at his hip stirred at the sound of the bleating goats; Anduin soothed it with motions that were more automatic than sleep or breath.  
  
One of the does, a hand higher than her fellows with a sturdy but graceful build and thick fur that marked her well apart from the rest of the herd, shouldered her way past the others to shove her head up against Anduin's hip. He laughed softly, rubbing his knuckles over her head and fumbled in his pockets until he found a piece of dried apple left over from breakfast, letting her lip it out of his palm with her soft mouth. The milk doe had been a last minute necessary purchase at the start of his travels - they had told him he might not need her at all and he could still recall, with a burning crystal clarity, the dizzying feel of holding a tiny mouth to his own chest and the tight, hot bloom that had stolen his breath away as that mouth latched on and suckled. He had cried at the time, overwrought and exhausted and floating on the cushion of healing spells after prolonged pain.  
  
He had cried again a week later when he had had to admit the milk goat was necessary and no amount of wishful thinking was going to make it less so. The doe had come from a Grummle trader happy to exchange her for some of his last Alliance stamped coins, and she had faithfully provided a supply of rich milk morning and night for months until, at the end, she had also provided Anduin with passage from Booty Bay to Stormwind. She was probably worth twice that; the proud Kun-lai stamp of her breeding would bring a small fortune on the market she was headed towards from some farmer hopeful of starting a hybrid strand from the rarely seen exotic Pandaren breed.  
  
The merchant he had traded her to waved to him as she herded the goats away. Anduin raised his hand, then turned the gesture into pulling a fold of his cloak up, hiding the bright shine of his hair beneath it. The passengers of the ship were still disembarking and all around him the docks were bustling with workers and crewmembers and passengers from a handful of ships, coming and going in swirls of bodies and goods and carts. Beyond the white stone walls rose the spires of the great cathedral, the deep bells pealing out the morning hour in a sound Anduin could remember all his life.  
  
 _Home_ , and he felt as though he might be ill, stomach clenched tight and painful beneath his ribs. He tucked the sleepy bundle at his hip closer, wrapping his cloak around them both, and started on unsteady feet for the broad shallow steps that lead up to the city proper.

  
  
* * * *

  
By the time he reached the Cathedral square he had drawn his cloak tighter, the hood pulled all the way up to shadow his face, and Anduin still felt as though he couldn't breathe. Everywhere was familiar - familiar voices in the language of his birth, familiar sounds as the city woke up and moved into the bustle of the day, sight and scent and he could have walked the streets with his eyes closed but he didn't dare. He couldn't stop looking, flinching, and more than once he saw the helmets of the guards stationed along the roads turn towards him; he looked drunk, he was sure, his legs still unsteady, wobbling from side to side in an uneven meandering path. None of them moved from their posts, however, and he didn't care if they thought him drunk or deranged so long as they didn't come any closer.  
  
 _Alliance guards_ , some dim part of him tried to tell himself. Blue liveried guards that he had been taught from an early age meant safety, meant security, the ones he was meant to go to if anything was wrong. But that was then and now the sight of a uniform, any uniform, set his heart to racing, his hands clammy and shaking, looking for a threat that wasn't there.  
  
He knew weapons - offense or defense, knew the basics of most any blade, blunt, or ranged weapon, far more than most of the priesthood would ever touch - but his hands were full of travel pack and the bundle at his hip was too fragile to risk. He had abandoned his mace early on, the weapon useless when his movement and grip were fouled around what he carried. Even a staff was pointless, though he wished he had kept one just to steady his steps. More and more, as he wound his way through the increasingly populated streets, every brush of another body making him flinch, he found himself biting his tongue. It was a habit that had become entrenched through the long journey, easily called up when his nerves were itching beneath his skin, his heart hammering in his chest. _Pain_ , it whispered just beneath his breath, the Shadow word oily and dark on his tongue, ready to be unleashed on a single exhale, the weapon that required no hands. _Death_ hovered behind it, the two circling, unspoken, in his throat as he passed a pair of guards, trying not to flinch beneath their bored eyes as he crossed over the sturdy stone bridge that spanned the canal waters between the districts.  
  
He didn't remember Stormwind having _so many people_. He didn't remember the walls that rose up to either side of the winding streets pressing so close, he didn't remember the noise of his native language being so harsh in his ears. He felt brittle, inside and out, the protection of the cloak wrapped around him too flimsy for safety, and every raised voice made him flinch, shoulders hunching, afraid that the next one would be raised to exclaim over the miraculous return of their prince.  
  
It never came, but by the time he reached the entrance of the courtyard that lead to the castle he was having trouble breathing. Anduin kept his head down, watched his boots upon the flagstones, one step after another. It was morning still, the great gates flung open - public audience, open to the citizenry, he knew the schedule like his own hands. The King would hear the concerns of his people for a handful of hours every morning he was in residence. Anduin had known it and been counting on it.  
  
He hadn't counted on the sight of the castle making him have to stop by the grand fountain, looking up at the shining statue of King Wrynn in full armor. There was a ringing in his ears, too like the droning endless peal of bells, and his breath was coming short and sharp. Shock, the healer in him classified. Nerves, and he had never been a coward no matter what anyone might say, but the idea of mounting the steps to the castle entrance was more than he could bear.  
  
He could, Anduin thought dimly, sit down on the edge of the fountain and catch his breath. It sounded reasonable, a simple stopgap measure before climbing the broad, stately stairs, but he knew if he sat that he would continue to sit until the morning sun crept away, the audience over, and nowhere to go when they closed the gates. His coin was long spent, nothing left for lodging or supplies. He could, if it were just him, fare well enough overnight. One more night of anonymity, safe in namelessness, no one's pawn. One more night...  
  
The bundle at his hip shifted and Anduin soothed his hands over the familiar shape of it before turning his faltering steps to the stairs.  
  



	2. Chapter 2

He had remembered and counted upon the morning audience, but he hadn't thought of the guards. Anduin had never entered through the public entrance and hadn't stopped to think of the security measures that must go into a king greeting his people. Or rather, he _knew_ what went into it, but the idea of what it meant from the other side of the divide only reared up, too little too late, when the guards were already all around.  
  
There had been a line - he had expected that, the applicants for the audience funneled into a queue, each to wait patiently for the chance to make their case. Anduin had taken his place in it without comment, without raising his head, standing pliant and silent between a well dressed merchant ahead of him and an older woman in the smock of the smithing guild behind. He could, a tiny voice whispered, dispense with the pretense. It would be easy. All he had to do was hail one of the guards, lift his head, announce himself. There would be no line, no wait, no uncertainty, just welcome.  
  
 _Unless there wasn't,_ the other part of his mind whispered, and Anduin had to stop himself from his arms tightening around the weight at his hip. _Unless this is a trap, unless there is a traitor, unless there is no home after all.._.  
  
It was madness, a madness he has been listening to for months, circling over and through him until he didn't know what the truth was any more. It was safer, easier, to take his place in line, one more silent nondescript person of no importance, watching everyone around him with wary eyes. He was nothing, he wanted to tell them, willing the eyes of everyone around him to slide away from his travel stained cloak and slumped shoulders. He was nothing, no one, safety in namelessness.  
  
The line shuffled forward, two guards converging on the elderly man ahead of the merchant at the front of the line and Anduin felt his breath leave his lungs in a rush, realizing his mistake. Checking, and these were no bored street patrol half dozing at their posts. No weapons before the King, no unexamined parcels or bags or anything that could hold a weapon. Names and business, taken down on record, to be announced before all assembled. Guards before him, and nowhere to go, boxed in by walls and living bodies on all sides.  
  
The smith behind him cursed when he took a step back, his boot coming down on hers, and gave him a shove forward. Anduin stumbled, his knees still unsteady, the ground heaving traitorously to force him to catch himself against the wall. _Too close_ , and he had turned before he could even think on it, hand raised.  
  
She must have seen something in his face, something of the tight fury and fear boiling up through his chest, because the woman fell back with a sharply indrawn breath. Anduin bit his tongue at the last second - _painPainPAIN_ \- hard enough to hurt, hard enough to taste blood where he caught his lip between his teeth, the Shadow words that he hated to use so thick in his mouth he felt like he was suffocating.  
  
"Here now, what's this?" A hand, thick leather glove and overlapping plate scale, caught his wrist in a hard grasp. "None of that - take your arguments outside and mind your manners before his Majesty!"  
  
"Take your hands off me!" In retrospect Anduin would be glad that it was words - actual words, real words, not shadowy sigils of power - that burst from his mouth. In that instant, however, he could only feel the horror of hearing his own voice, his real voice, sharp and commanding, ring out from the stone walls. It brought the guard who had caught his arm up short for a split second, spine snapping straight in response to the tone.  
  
Only for an instant, though, and then the man's eyes behind the visor slits of the sturdy plate helm upon his head narrowed, his mouth twisting thin. Anduin had a skip of his racing heart to know that the guard saw him - saw enough, in any case, saw the flecks of Shadow in the depths of Anduin's eyes or felt the chill of it beneath his skin - before the guard pulled in the same sharp, indrawn breath the smith had. "Sorcerer!"  
  
Plate mail clad bodies, more than one, converged on him, knocking the breath from his lungs and slamming him back against the wall. Another gloved hand came down across his mouth, muffling him, and Anduin struggled in furious silence, one handed, body and arm curled around his burden; kicking, clawing, wrenching free. _Death_ was thick on his tongue with no breath to speak it, the fire in his chest and belly burning as cold as ice.  
  
"What in the name of the Light is going on?" A new voice but a familiar one thick with the broader vowels and sharper sounds of a Gilnean accent; it robbed Anduin of what little coherence he could muster, his lungs emptying in a wheezed rush as a new hand caught him by the arm, fingers dug tight and painful into his flesh. Genn Greymane was older than his father but the strength in his hands was nothing to be dismissed, as strong as titanium and heavy as iron, and Anduin, trying desperately to breathe, thought he could feel the prickle of sharp claw through the other man's leather gloves. Certainly he could hear the growl of the wolf in Genn's gruff voice, a rasp of a snarl underneath the sounds for all that the other man's eyes were rigidly, carefully, human.  
  
Those eyes raked over him, the older man's sharp nostrils flaring, and Anduin had a panicked moment to think of hormonal changes within a body and to wonder half in hysterics whether or not his _scent_ had changed so much that the Worgen cursed king might not recognize him. Genn's other hand came up and Anduin flinched, trying to jerk back, but it was the hood of his cloak the other man's fingers were reaching for, not his throat.  
  
Cloth came away, letting Anduin's hair fall across his forehead. Genn's eyes were showing the whites at the edges, wide and astonished as his hand tightened so hard on Anduin's arm that the younger man thought he could feel his bones grind together. Anduin saw the other man's mouth move, his own name formed on Greymane's lips in a soundless whisper.  
  
In the next instant he was being dragged forward, his arm still caught in that implacable grip that forced his faltering steps to stumble after Genn's long strides. "Clear the room," Genn was crying, his deep voice booming out in battlefield cadences that had guards leaping to do as he said. "Clear the room, the audience is ended! Your Majesty - _Varian!"_  
  
And then there was nothing but the vast arched ceilings and empty space of the throne room and there, rising from the heavy lion throne, was his father. Varian Wrynn looked as though he had aged decades in the last year, the lines of his face cut heavy and deep in somber, serious grooves. His eyes were dull and cold as stone, his mouth set into a grim line that was rapidly turning to a scowl at the older man's presumption of disrupting the audience hour, and Anduin didn't think it was his imagination that the massive ornamented plate of his father's armor hung heavier on the man's broad shoulders than he could ever remember it before.  
  
 _His fault,_ and his heart was racing, he couldn't draw in breath, he couldn't move. Anduin let Genn Greymane propel him forward into the center of the room on numb and stumbling feet, unable to look away as his father descended the shallow steps from the throne.  
  
He saw it, there, when Varian's gaze took him in, saw the flicker deep in dark eyes and the moment, unguarded, when his father's jaw dropped in shock. Behind him he could hear the guards struggling to clear the room, the frantic babble of alarmed citizens. "Assassin," someone cried, and someone screamed, but someone else's voice raised in a cry of "the Prince!" and that, at last, was taken up by multiple throats. "His Highness!" "Prince Anduin!"  
  
The only voice Anduin heard, however, was his father's, his name cried hoarse and rough. "ANDUIN!"  
  
Genn released him, pushing him forward, and Anduin gave up entirely trying to breathe - his father was there, hands grasping his shoulders, dragging him into a tight embrace. It was all hard edges and metal plate but Anduin knew that feel, knew the press of armor and the smell of leather and oil and for a moment he was ten again, or six, or less, a child caught up in his father's strong arms where everything was safe and nothing could hurt. He choked with the feel of it, clinging blindly to a snarling lion pauldron, the whole world collapsing into the feel of his father's hands and his father's ragged, breathless voice, repeating his name in a low, desperate whisper. "Anduin... Light bless, Anduin, you're alive..."  
  
Anduin thought he could have stayed there forever but the increasingly urgently shifting weight at his hip dragged him back to himself. His voice was too high in his own ears, choked and younger than he had been in what felt like ages or entire lifetimes. "No, wait... let go, you're crushing... let me go!"  
  
Varian released him so quickly Anduin stumbled, his father's hands catching his shoulders and then just as quickly retreating again. "You're hurt," Varian growled, eyes darting over his son's form as though he expected to find a blood soaked bandage or wrapped limb. "Where-"  
  
Anduin could only shake his head, taking a half step back to stand on his own feet. "No, Father," he managed, his own voice steadier than he thought it would be. "No, I'm not hurt, I'm alright, I..." Old. His father looked, for the first time in Anduin's memory, old. Old, worn, and the light in his eyes was equal parts joy and fear, and this was what a year and several months had wrought. Anduin licked his lips, reaching out to press a hand over the cold metal above his father's heart. "I'm alright," he repeated quietly. "I'm alright... now."  
  
The distinction wasn't lost on Varian, whose eyes tightened into hard slits. Anduin continued hastily, finding his voice somewhere in the rush of desperation - no choice, no other time, this was what all the months at sea and before had been trudging towards. "I'm sorry," he said, hoping his father could hear just how very much he regretted in his voice. "I'm sorry, I would have sent word sooner but... there were... complications."  
  
Varian paused, brows drawing down in silent question. Anduin breathed out until his lungs were empty and aching and reached with shaking hands to peel his cloak back, shifting the sling that bound his burden across his chest to bring the warm, soft weight of the cloth swaddled bundle forward.  
  
His father stood firm, surprise evident in the tight stretch of his shoulders, as Anduin unwrapped the soft cloths to bare a small head covered in downy fuzz the color of rich honey. Wide dark eyes stared up at him accusingly, a small mouth screwed up to start making noise and Anduin, his breath caught in his throat, dropped a gentle kiss on the tiny forehead and murmured soft hushing noises before pushing the bundle into his father's hands.  
  
Varian, to his credit, took the warm weight of the infant automatically. His eyebrows were up in his hairline, mouth open in surprise, but his large hands cupped the swaddled blankets with a steady competency that brought a wane smile to Anduin's lips. "Father," he said, hearing his own voice as though from a great distance, "I'd like to introduce you to Varia Tiffin Wrynn... your granddaughter."  
  
He saw the shock on his father's face, saw Varian shift his grip automatically to something closer, more careful. Home, he realized, but it wasn't Stormwind, it wasn't the castle, it was there, safety and security in the hands of family, and the last thing Anduin heard as the ringing in his ears swallowed everything was his father's sharp, clipped cry of his name echoed by Genn's bass shout, and then the reverberation of the bell that he would never _stop_ hearing roared over him as his legs crumpled out from under him.


	3. Chapter 3

The feel of the bed was almost alien, thick and soft and luxurious. On the heels of steaming hot water and real soap to wash the salt from his skin and clean clothes it was a decadent luxury that Anduin thought he might sink into and never crawl out of again.  
  
And food... rolls of bread, brown crusted outside, soft and still warm from the ovens on the inside, smothered in rich pats of butter that Anduin licked greedily from his fingers. A bowl of thick soup, fresh vegetables and bits of meat in a savory brown broth, without so much as a flake of fish anywhere to be found, nothing dried or salted. Chilled fresh water, clean and crystal clear, fruit juice that was tangy and sweet. Anduin ate until his stomach hurt, too full and still aching for one more bite, another sip, taste buds awake and alive for what felt like the first time in months.  
  
When he pushed the tray away it was to find his father frowning at him from where Varian had dragged a heavy oak chair over beside Anduin's bed. Stormwind's king had stripped away the heavy weight of his armor hours before but he was no less formidable looking in tunic and trousers - or, for that matter, with a swaddled babe tucked into the crook of one arm. Varian, once seated, hadn't been moved for anything; not for the healers who had descended on Anduin to look him over from head to toe, shaking their heads and tutting the whole while, not when the servants had brought in and filled the tub or when they had drained it again, and not when more of them had brought up trays of food. Through it all Varian had sat like part of the walls of Stormwind itself, unwilling to move or to let Anduin out of his sight, his granddaughter held as safely in his scar and muscle corded arms as she might have been in her own crib.  
  
If she had ever had one. Anduin wondered, dimly, if the nursery furniture from his own childhood was still somewhere to be found, tucked away in storage, and whether it could be brought out, and whether his own workroom, off of his suite, might be stripped and converted into a nursery. He opened his mouth to ask but Varian chose that moment to lean forward, pushing the tray back into Anduin's lap. "You don't eat enough."  
  
Anduin started to protest - he was really and truly stuffed - but a glance at the tray and some hasty calculation informed him that 'stuffed' was, in reality, two bread rolls and three quarters of a bowl of soup. Grimacing, he picked up another roll, tearing a piece of it off to soak in the broth. "Travel rations," he admitted. "This is more than I'm used to."  
  
Varian was frowning again, the thunderous scowl that pulled down his brow and mouth alike. Whatever he might have said, however, was interrupted by the first soft, hiccuped sounds that preceded actual crying from the bundle in his arms. Anduin hastily shoved the bite in his mouth, wiping his hands off, and reached out. "Here, give her here..."  
  
"Don't be ridiculous," Varian said, softer, and just like that the scowl was gone, washed away as he lifted the infant to his shoulder, his large hands splayed all across her back and cupping the softly downed curve of her head. "I can manage a bottle - changing cloths too, for that matter. Finish your food."  
  
There was something incredibly soothing in the hungry suckling sounds of his daughter eating, and a strangeness in not being the one doing the feeding. Varian, one foot propped on the edge of Anduin's bed, cradled his granddaughter in one arm with a gentleness that might have surprised someone who didn't know him and kept the warmed glass bottle full of milk tipped at an angle while the baby latched onto the leather teat. Anduin leaned back against the pillows, feeling tired in his very bones, exhausted and worn thin, but at peace as he watched his father gruffly fuss over his daughter.  
  
Varian deftly lifted the baby back to his shoulder when she was done, rubbing her back until she gave an alarmingly loud burp for something so small and promptly dropped back into dozing. The king studied her thoughtfully as he cradled her, gently ruffling the fringe of her hair and touching the small plump cheeks and tiny curled hands. "I think she has my nose," he said abruptly, sounding bemused.  
  
Anduin covered a grin with one hand, pushing the tray away once more while his father was preoccupied. "I think you're right."  
  
Varian huffed, shaking his head slightly. "Poor girl." He glanced up, arching a brow at his son. "Varia?"  
  
"For great-grandmother," Anduin replied promptly, which made his father grin.  
  
"Grandmother was a hell of a woman," Varian said, approvingly, glancing fondly at the bundle in his arms, but that, too, slid away quickly, the frown tugging at his brow again. He exhaled, shoulders coming up. "Anduin..."  
  
"No," Anduin said, quiet but firm. He shook his head, lacing his fingers together tightly over the quilt drawn up across his lap. "No, Father. I can't... I can't do this right now. Don't ask me to. You'll have a report from the healers by tonight, they're probably drafting it up right now, I don't..."  
  
Varian's hand pressed warm against Anduin's knee as his father leaned forward and that contact, sturdy and solid, dried up the words in Anduin's mouth. "Peace, son," he said, in the tone that had, once upon a time, banished the nightmares and the monsters in the dark for a young prince. Varian met his eyes, unfaltering, until Anduin could draw in a shaking breath. "It's alright," he said at last, almost gently, and Anduin wasn't sure which of them the reassurance was meant for. "You're home. You're safe."  
  
He sat back once more, giving Anduin room as he looked down at the infant in his arms. "Granddaughter," Varian mused quietly. "Not at all what I was expecting." He glanced up, eyes dark. "She's definitely yours?"  
  
The question made Anduin stiffen and he couldn't help the way his hands clenched in the blankets, pressed tight to the ache of his stomach. "Yes," he said, the sharp viciousness of his own voice surprising him. "She's _mine_. No one else's, just _mine_."  
  
"Peace." It wasn't reassurance this time, but a command, Varian's frown turning thoughtful. His eyes flickered to Anduin's hands, then back to the baby girl in his arms.  
  
Neither of them said anything for several long minutes, Anduin with too many words tumbling through his throat, his hands clenched until they were white knuckled and a sick, uncertain feeling in his stomach. "Father..."  
  
"I know why we pulled our people out of Pandaria," Varian interrupted, crisp and brisk and matter of fact. "Of course I do. We can ask our soldiers to face certain death against the enemies of the Alliance but some things... well." The king paused, clearing his throat slightly, his gaze fixed on the peacefully sleeping features of his granddaughter and not on the tense figure of his son. "I can't say if it's a curse or a blessing, but Pandaria is... not for us." He glanced up, meeting Anduin's eyes. "You understand I had to ask, but if you say she's yours then that's all that needs saying. The other... parent. I assume there won't be any issues?"  
  
"No," Anduin said shortly. He couldn't meet his father's gaze, eyes fixed on a point just above Varian's brow, and he could tell by the rush of heat that his face was probably flushed. "There won't be."  
  
Varian's eyes narrowed and Anduin cursed his father's intuition, whatever extra sense that instilled itself in parents to know when their children required scrutiny. Whatever he saw made Varian exhale, slow and a little shaky, a pained look crossing his face. "Anduin..."  
  
"No," Anduin repeated, firmly. He drew in a breath of his own, squaring his shoulders.  "Later," he allowed, the compromise sour tasting in his mouth. "Later, Father. Please."  
  
Varian hesitated, then inclined his head in grudging acknowledgement. "Later," he agreed, a promise that Anduin could only hope would be indefinitely delayed.  
  
The king pushed himself to his feet and Anduin started to protest but Varian was already there, gently placing the sleeping baby down into Anduin's arms, his hand passing lightly over her hair, and then over Anduin's own. "Tiffin never could sleep if she didn't know where you were," he said gruffly, the old ache still an undercurrent to the words. "Get some sleep, son, or the healers will have both our hides."  
  
Varian lifted the mostly empty tray aside and drew up the blankets as Anduin slid down, turning onto his side in the soft expanse of the bed, his daughter the same warm, secure weight within his arms that she had been since her birth. Varian touched his hair again, a press of a solid hand against the curve of his skull. Anduin dutifully closed his eyes against the hot, burning feeling that flooded them and tried not to listen to the sound of his father resuming a seat in the chair an arm's length away, as though any distance greater might make Anduin disappear.  
  



End file.
